By Jeremy Williams

It’s a tricky time to be writing about food sustainability. The issue seems to be strangely divisive at the moment. On one side are those who see our future needs being met through small-scale organic farming. On the other are those who see no way to produce enough for all the world’s population that way, and are open to more technological solutions.

I resolutely believe we can have both (and get told that this is naive*), and so I read books from both perspectives. This book would sit very much on the techno-optimist side, as it extols the virtues of cultivated meat.

What is cultivated meat? It is also known as cultured meat, sometimes ‘clean meat’ by its PR champions. Those who are sniffy about it refer to it as ‘lab meat’, though of course it won’t be coming from a lab by the time the likes of you and I can afford it. It will be coming from a factory, where it will have been grown in a nutrient soup inside a bioreactor. “Picture breweries, with their stainless steel tanks, housing biological processes that transform ingredients into foods,” says Isha Datar in her chapter. “But instead of beer, milk, meat or egg proteins are inside.”

This whole idea gives some people the shivers – it’s weird, unnecessary, a threat to farmers and another step along the road of nature disconnection. Others are excited by the possibility of meat without killing an animal, releasing literally billions of future animals from a life of misery and early death. Still, others don’t quite understand how it works at all, and it feels too much like science fiction to be taken seriously.

Now is the time to read up on it, because it isn’t science fiction any more. The world’s first cultivated meat product is being sold right now in Singapore. We know it’s scientifically possible, but is it wise? What are trade-offs? Who are the winners and losers? There’s no legal framework for commercial cultured meat right now and it’s up for discussion, so this is the moment to ask the critical questions.

Seizing this moment, Cultivated Meat is a collection of essays addressing some of the important issues. It’s edited by Belgian animal rights activist Michel Vandenbosch and Philip Lymbery, chief executive of Compassion in World Farming. Contributors include scientists, ethicists, experts in consumer behaviour, nutritionists and more.

One chapter looks at the history of the idea (did you know Winston Churchill predicted it in 1932?) and where we are today. The basic science of cultivated meat has been around for a few years now, and it’s very similar to the techniques used to produce insulin or rennet, both of which are uncontroversial. The obstacles to cultivated meat aren’t scientific for the most part, but legal, commercial, financial and technical. There’s competition for funding, a shortage of bioreactors, and a lag in the licensing for it.

Another chapter looks at the cultural obstacles to consider. Do people even want it? If meat is a problem, isn’t it easier to just go vegetarian? (Answer: of course it is, but most people don’t want to and we need solutions that work for most people.) One chapter asks for opinions from religious leaders. Others compare the environmental impact of cultivated meat vs conventional meat – and by conventional you should read industrialised meat. Globally, 90% of farmed animals are on factory farms, and it is there that animals need to be liberated.

The book is broadly positive, and I was surprised at just how long the list of potential benefits runs. There are also negatives. No technology is neutral. Obstacles remain, and the vested interests of industrial farming are moving against the idea. The book is honest about that, and I didn’t come away from it with a confident answer about how far we are away from affordable cultivated meat.

All meat is ultimately a product of violence. We either deny that or find ways to rationalise it and make our own compromises. But if cultivated meat can break that association, and satisfy our human craving for meat without animal suffering, then it deserves our full consideration.

*It is naive to think we can have both, I have been told, because as long as there is any kind of industrialised farming going on, it will inevitably squeeze out smaller farmers until they no longer exist. I don’t think this is inevitable, not least because high tech doesn’t mean huge scale in the way it did in the past. It’s certainly the case with cultivated meat, which can be done small-scale and locally.

First published in The Earthbound Report.